from the 'Great Brain' who gave us the Amazing, New Speed Bottling technique.

From the ‘Great Brain’
who gave us:
The ‘Amazing new speed bottling technique’

Boys, I have been brewing 16 years and this will be my 17th year.
First the goal was alcohol which didn’t taste bad.
Now alcohol which tastes terrible is better than no alcohol at all,
but alcohol which didn’t taste bad was my initial goal in home brewing
when I got the ‘Pappazian’ book.

After many years of just brewing base malts for the alcohol,
I barely survived being murdered in 2001, and again in 2007,
once by the criminals and the second time by ‘bad cops’.
I am disabled and live on ‘My 25 Acres’ alone
but for my hound Sandymay, my mule ‘Red,’
and my horse Sugarmay.
{Not to mention 150 chickens}

One day, three years ago, I thought to myself...
“ I can brew alcohol alright,
this winter I will endeavor to brew ‘quantity’,
as much ‘quantity’ as I can”.
I managed to brew, ‘with only my disability check’
300 Lbs of DME
and produced 2,000 12 oz bottles of ale,
‘Mein acht pfund Hammerbier’ or my ‘8 Lb Hammer’ beer.
{9 Lbs is a little much in the hot summer weather}
{7 Lbs a little light 'and too much bottling'}
I posted a picture, here... of 517 12 oz ‘full’ bottles,
‘all in the same place and at the same time’.
’The big brew’ which was bottled before May lasted until July 28th.
And then it was gone,
I drank the last one,
and it passed into history,
gone but ‘not entirely’ forgotten.

Then…steeping specialty grains
made a world of difference in that it gave
‘mein Hammerbier’ the flavor it had been lacking.

1. So having mastered alcohol,
2. quantity thereof…
3. and now quality as it tastes great too!

I was sitting outside yesterday working on my old traps.
I haven’t had any beer for a week or two and I was just wire brushing this old #3 L/S O/S and thinking…

My disability check isn’t enough to buy much beer.
Life is strange with no beer,
but I have done this sort of deliberately.
Not being brewing weather anyway,
I have discovered that if I spend my monthly disability check
on ‘building materials’ to build ‘housing’ for my poultry empire,
‘sandpaper’ for finishing the 59 knives I am working on,
‘ traps’ for the old trap line,
or some other productive, money making use.
And then buy enough beer to last me only for a week or ten days,
ie. 75-100 beers, before my check is gone
which it always is after a week or two,
I am vastly more productive, because the first week ‘I drink all the beer’
and while doing so, sit around and admire the work I accomplished
the last 2-3 weeks of ‘the previous month.
Then I have no beer, it’s gone,
But, I do have ‘materials’ to work on the poultry empire ‘housing’,
the ‘knife shop’, or wire brushing and tuning up the new {old}’ traps’ I have bought,
getting them ready for the ‘line’.
And since I am out of beer there is nothing else to do but work.
So I have 2-3 week’s worth of work to do which will eventually
make me a ‘monetary profit’.
I am slowly getting ahead.

Disability is not enough to buy much beer.
But the 2k I make from the knives each year,
The 1k from the poultry,
{which will be 5k with enough housing}
And the .25 cents a mile I make off the old trap line,
Not only keeps me in better shape but it gives me something to look forwards to, something to want to get out of bed early in the morning for,

a way to be more productive, {and be able to buy more beer one day.}

Now, the point to all this rambling…
There I was…
I was sitting outside wire brushing this old #3 and thinking
and this thought came to me!
Right out of the blue!
What if I brewed two batches at once!
10 gallons!
What would be involved?
Hmmmm…
After much deliberation,
I realized…
what would produce ‘twice as much ale’
in the same amount of time!
What would double?
my productive capacity?
Enable me to brew more ale,
not only:
1. A freezer which would extend the brew season from 6 months to 9!
2. Or Apfelwein, which, with three or four extra carbouys,
would easily give me double ‘booze’ for not much more work,
and then the idea just came to me!

All I would need is a new brew pot!
That is all!
It was so simple!
{Thank you again Brain.}
Another brew pot,
I can ‘stir’ two at once,
mixing in the steeped specialty grains and DME.
I can ‘heat’ two at once on my stove
{catty corner from one another}.
Heat two at once and watch one as it reaches hot break,
And then swap. Heat the other to hot break,
And then ‘cool’ both at the same time. {I do have two sinks}
And even clean up both messes at once.

Dern!
It was so simple.
There, why brew slaving over one brew pot for 5-6 hours?
When you can slave over two as easily?
With ‘double production’ as the goal
the key would be simply,
a ‘damned, new brew pot’!

I am amazed and stunned.
It was so simple,
{I know I just said that.}
But most ‘great ideas’ are just that simple.